The Boys Are Back

Today we are back in full force from our various vacations and technical malfunctions and are ready to hit this blog today at The Gridiron Uniform Database with a vengeance. We have no less than 36 database updates to bring you, and we will try to do a huge chunk of them today.

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Let's get started with the 1994 and 1995 Raiders. Thanks to Mako Mameli, who brought this change to our attention. We have added Starter manufacturer logos to the front of the pants. Discussion is on-going in our forum about the number font of the 1960s Raiders. I believe at one point we thought it was as simple as the black jerseys always had a particular font, and the white jerseys with the silver-with-black-outline (1963-64 & 1970) had the squared-off numbers and the other white jerseys -- the regular black numbers -- had the standard numbers. Now, thanks to Mako, we are finding it is more complicated than that.

Cookie Gilchrist of the Bills in a 1962 Preseason tilt against Boston.
Still undetermined is the status of the Pats' logo-less helmet on #85

Another change we are debuting today is a 1962 preseason variation for the Buffalo Bills -- they did use this combination shown in this picture, and we are adding it to the database.

We have made some changes to the 1957 Eagles and Browns, thanks to some images posted to our forum. For the Eagles, we have changed the pants that they wore with the stripe-less white jersey to the white pants, and for the Browns, we added the preseason variation of number-less helmets. They apparently waited until the regular season to debut their helmets with the numbers on them. Thanks go to LarryB and BD Sullivan for this forum thread that brought us these updates. This whole discussion owes itself to the images available online at the USC Digital Library, which has many 1950s Rams images in its collection.

Here are some images from the USC Digital Library: 1957 Eagles at Rams (left),
1957 Browns at Rams (center) and 1955 Packers at Rams (right).

In these above images, in the picture on the right, which you can see in more detail here, we are currently looking into the Packers' stripe pattern. Of this Packers image, our historian Tim Brulia says, "It's from 1955 and the Packers look to be clearly wearing WHITE stripes
on the jerseys and socks and WHITE numbers on the jersey. Helmet and
pants are clearly yellow." Debate continues on this issue.

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Another preseason change for the 1967 Detroit Lions: We have determined that for the '67 season, the Lions wore a plain white preseason jersey, similar to the plain blue one they wore in 1968. Speaking of preseason, tomorrow we will be bringing you Tim's column about some trends of uniform apparel in the history of NFL preseasons that you may have not already known

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The 1994 Kansas City Chiefs have also received a minor update -- again it's Mako Mameli
pointing out to us that we were missing the NFL Shield logo on the
pants for the 75th Anniversary throwbacks. Thanks Mako for all your
contributions, and keep them coming.

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We still have many more database updates to bring you, but we will save them for another time. We have more on the 1996-2003 Eagles we discussed earlier this week, plus Houston Oilers and New York Jets changes, as well as a modification to the 1990 San Francisco 49ers, thanks to Larry Schmitt that we have to update. We'll bring you those in the coming days.

Yesterday I announced a contest regarding the NFL Network's Top 100 players of 2011 poll that they have been airing this summer. Tomorrow night at 8 PM Eastern Time they will reveal the top 10. They have already released numbers 11-100 in the past weeks (to the lower right on this page), and I thought it would be fun to have a contest to pick the order of the remaining ten. This is similar to a contest we are having at another internet community that I am a part of, and I thought it would be fun to bring it here. The rules are simple, pick the order of the remaining ten players, you start at 45 points, you get a bonus for getting a player at the right spot (+10 for #1 spot correct, +9 for #2 spot correct, etc., down to +1 for #10 spot correct), and you lose a point for each spot each player of yours is wrong by (i.e you have Brady at #1, he is #2, you lose 1 point; you have Brady at #1, he is #3, you lose 2 points etc.) Minus-10 is most points you can lose, if a player you select isn't in top 10. You would score a perfect score of 100, if you get all ten right, while the worst possible score you could get is -55, if all ten of your picks do not make the Top 10. There is a thread in the forum to enter your picks, so get to it!

Our other on-going contest is the Best NFL Uniform Of All-Time tournament. Voting will soon end on the first group of entries, so if you haven't voted on those yet, hurry up and do so. Monday we will have our second group of first-round match-ups, so be sure not to miss that.

It's identified as Packers at Rams '58, but it has to be '57. Ray Nitschke's rookie-year number with the Packers was 33, but that's clearly not Nitschke. The man who wore 33 for the Packers in '57 was Frank Purnell from Alcorn A&M. It was his only season with the team.

As for the mid-'50s Packers wearing white-numeral jerseys with the gold pants, there's another instance of them using that combo against the Lions at Tiger Stadium. I've seen it on video, but I'll try to find a photographic source.

There's also a 64 for the Packers clearly playing defense in that set. Jerry Kramer wore 64 right from the start with the Packers and was an offensive guard the whole time, while in '57 a linebacker named Ernie Danjean wore 64.

I think the whole set of photos is actually from '57. A moot point with regard to the uniforms, since the Packers wore that all-white uni in L.A. in '57 and '58, but worth noting for future reference.

The set identified as Packers at Rams 1955 is much more likely to be accurately time-stamped. The Rams, under Sid Gillman, won the Western Conference title in '55, their first since '51. That's clearly Gillman being lifted onto his players' shoulders. So the Packers had a dark jersey with white numerals as early as '55.

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NOTE: For the most part all uniforms incorporated side stripes that were identical. However there are several instances in which the stripes have been mirror-images of each other or flat-out different. When different both the left and right sides are shown. For a listing of the mirror-images please check out the portion of “About Our Template” that relates to pants stripes.

DISCLAIMER: All team and league information, sports logos, sports uniforms, and jerseys contained within this site are the intellectual properties of their respective leagues, teams, ownership groups and/or organizations, and were obtained from sources in the public domain. All manufacturers’ logos are similarly the property of those companies, current or former. Their use has been credited on every image upon which they are utilized.This site is maintained for research and historical purposes only and no financial gains are being sought from the use of the aforementioned images.Any information obtained from this site may not be sold to any third parties.The design of the templates used in the images, and all of their variations, including all helmet templates, are solely the property of Bill Schaefer and this site.Use of our constructed images requires the permission of the founders, Tim Brulia and/or Bill Schaefer.

This site is dedicated to Craig Wheeler, whose website Football Uniforms Past and Present was the first website to portray Pro Football uniforms in exhaustive detail. As fellow football historians, all of us are indebted to his work.